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Generally speaking, the traditional approach of security mainly regards states as a sole referent object of security and refutes any attempt to broaden the concept of security. This understanding is known as a realist approach. This approach, however, has been recently challenged by the Copenhagen School, the Welsh School, and the human security approach. The Copenhagen School assumes that there is now a duality of security: state security and societal security. However, both the Welsh School and the human security school look at individuals as a sole referent object of security. This article critically reviews the traditional approaches of security, the Copenhagen School, the Welsh School, and the human security approach. This article finally argues that the Copenhagen School could successfully broaden the concept of security, and therefore, it is more convincing when compared to other schools.

The concept of 'health security' has been increasingly apparent in recent years in both academic and policy discourses on transborder infectious disease threats. Yet it has been noted that there are a range of conceptualisations of 'health security' in circulation and that confusion over the concept is creating international tensions with some states (particularly from the Global South) fearing that 'health security' in reality means securing the West. This article examines these tensions but puts forward an alternative explanation for them. It begins by looking at the different 'health securities' that characterise the contemporary global health discourse, arguing that there is in fact a good deal more consensus than we are often led to believe. In particular there is a high level of agreement evident over what the major threats to 'health security' are and what should be done about them. These are a particular set of health risks which are primarily seen as major threats by Western developed nations, and contemporary global responses – often couched in the language of global health security – have a tendency to focus on containment rather than prevention. The article makes the case that to resolve the tensions around (global) health security there is the need for a more explicit recognition of the primary beneficiaries of the current system, and of who is bearing the costs. Only following such a recognition can meaningful debates be carried out about the appropriate prioritisation of global health security in relation to other global health governance priorities.

AbstractThis article examines the challenges and contradictions between some of the leading conceptions of security within the field of International Relations (IR), from those stating that the concept can only be employed by the state with regard to immediate, existential threats, to those that see security as the foundation of social life or as a human good. This article continues a discussion that has taken place in theReview of International Studiesregarding the development of positive security, examining the potential use of the terms 'negative' and 'positive' security to bring clarity to these diverging security perspectives and to argue for a multi-actor security approach. It is argued that positive security perspectives, which rely on non-violent measures, ensure an emphasis upon context, values, and security practices that build trust, and by use of a multi-actor security model, shows the dynamics between state and non-state actors in the creation of security.

In Kosovo, the concept of human security is invoked in a three-fold manner. First of all, the international community has applied human security for the purpose of maintaining a fragile peace and stability in Kosovo. For the international community, maintaining the fragile peace meant tolerating the establishment and operationalization of Serbian parallel institutions. This leads to the second application of human security: the parallel institutions claim that their existence is necessary to provide human security for the Serbian community in Kosovo. Consequently, this undermines the capacity of Kosovo's public institutions to exercise legal authority in the north of Kosovo and in other territorial enclaves. Parallel to this, Kosovo's institutions have viewed the human security approach as a means to prove the institutional capacity of independent self-government to provide inclusive security, welfare, and integration policies for all people in Kosovo, with a special emphasis on ethnic minorities. Accordingly, human security is used by different actors in Kosovo to pursue different political agendas, which have not resulted in achieving the primary goal of furthering human welfare and fulfilment beyond mere physical security. To the contrary, the (ab)use of human security has created the conditions for fragile governance, protracted ethnic destabilization, and stagnating economic and human development.